Archive of Our Own

Small comforts. Sasha, who he's stuck with as much as he is anyone save Martin, wasn't lying when she said that she's angry at Martin for how he's treated Jon. Weak anger, impotent anger, but anger nonetheless. There's a person in there, somewhere, who doesn't think that vampires are all sunshine and roses the way she sometimes seems to.

Martin's voice rumbles out, strong and loud and angry, and Jon flinches. The door closes, and there's the sound of many feet shuffling around.

There's Tim's voice, and it's so loud that Jon knows it's the pounding in his ears that obscures the words. There are footsteps heading his way, and though they stop before they get there, it makes his spine ache with how tightly he's holding himself upright.

Elias almost always told him to wait on the bed, and Martin usually follows him into the bedroom. Elias hadn't always, though, especially at the beginning. Sometimes he just told Jon to wait in his room, like today.

It's humiliating, being Ordered or yanked out from under his bed like a child, but it's comforting until then. He keeps the things under the bed arranged so that he can slip beneath it quickly and easily, can pull things in to hide him while ensuring that if he's Ordered out the best egress is on the side of the bed facing away from the door. He goes there, sometimes, even without a vampire in the flat to hide from. Visual obstruction isn't actually any safer, but it feels like it is, and sometimes that's enough. It's small and dark under the bed, dusty and pent in at all sides by boxes and shoes, but it feels safe. It's a small and precious scrap of safety for his mind, if not his body. He tries very hard to keep his breathing quiet, but it's hard with his nose stuffed from crying and fear quickening his heart.

It's hot and stifling. He slides out as quietly as he can, catching more voices without the dangling duvet absorbing the sound, and crawls over to the window, kneeling up to unlock and open it as silently as he can. He's allowed that much, even with his eyes and head sore, throat dry, stomach aching between hunger and nausea. He's allowed fresh air. When he goes back under the bed, it's quiet and cool enough to be bearable, just enough to combat the heat of anxiety and fear.

He can't hear them anymore, under the bed. He gropes around for the spare throw pillow he keeps down here, tucking it under his head. The room and floor are dark, and he rests his eyes. He won't fall asleep like this, terrified and in pain, wouldn't want to if he could, but it's another tiny comfort, closing his swollen, gritty eyes.

-

Tim glances at Danny from the corner of his eyes. He wishes his brother wasn't here, so close to an angry vampire so soon after escaping Nikola. There's still a faint mark on his neck from being bitten before the show. Tim would've gone up with Sasha to face Martin, but he'd rather Danny waited in the car.

Sasha makes him uneasy. She's beautiful and brilliant and far too happy to attribute Martin's actions to misunderstandings and good intentions. He and Jon have spent weeks debating in stolen whispers whether she's trustworthy, how much of the cheer and trust is something Martin Ordered into her, but tonight has his back up. He can't technically argue that carrying Nikola's head out of Danny's flat by the hair was an efficient way to communicate to a group of strangers that Nikola was dead, but he finds the judgement that lead her there extremely questionable.

He'd feel much better if he'd remembered to pick his stake up when he dropped it instead of running for the car empty-handed. All they really have to fall back on is Sasha's alleged rapport with Martin and how fast they can run from him, and Tim doesn't have much faith in either. All Martin needs to do is bite one of them, and the other will fall in line out of fear. It's what happened with Nikola; Tim will regroup, get another stake, and go after him, and Danny he'd trust to do the same if he were left free in that situation, but if Martin's smart he'll get to both of them once they're too afraid to run, and Order them to do no such thing.

Jon's nowhere to be found, and it's sawing at his nerves. Sasha's tearing into Martin while he darts flared-nostril glances at them. He did seem a bit sheepish when Sasha started yelling at him, but he's not exactly focusing on what she's saying. He took a step back as soon as the door opened, like he'd been physically pushed back by the smell.

Tim's not lucky enough for them to smell bad to a vampire.

-

A single set of footsteps comes toward the door, Jon can hear it reverberating through the floor. It doesn't sound like Martin, he thinks, but it still makes him curl tighter in dread anticipation. Maybe Martin sent Sasha after him, if the group he let in really was them.

They knock at the door. It's a small gesture, and he's hardly going to come out to answer, but he appreciates it.

The door opens, and whoever's outside takes a single step in. "Jon?" He doesn't know the voice, but it sounds enough like Tim to guess that it must be Danny. He walks further into the room as Jon debates whether to crawl out or see if he'll leave. "Jon?"

Before Jon can answer, deciding that Danny probably understands the urge to get hidden and tucked away even knowing it won't do any good, he turns and walks out.

"He's not in there!"

He can hear sounds of astonishment and worry and a good bit of anger, faintly, now that the door's open. His face heats, and he's debating whether to come out when a small stampede walks over.

"How long ago did he go in there?" Sasha asks.

"I- I don't know!" Martin says, making Jon curl up even smaller. He'll smell Jon in the room, he's sure of it, and then he'll drag him out in front of everyone. "When did I start calling you, it was just before that."

"That was hours ago!"

Someone walks between the bed and the window, and stops at the window. Tim says, "The fire escape's right there. Good for him."

"Where would he go?" Martin asks, and Jon wonders why he's entertaining this farce. Is it just to terrorize him? A way of escalating the crime so that he can do something especially harsh as punishment, to scare everyone else into behaving?

He stays where he is, mortified and panicked, as they start arguing their way into forming a search party.

-

Tim's heart is pounding in his ears. Bad enough to see Sasha shouted down, finally proving unambiguously that Martin isn't such a friend to her after all, so that he could say that at least one of them smelled perfect. Smelled like Jon. Smelled too good to be free.

Bad enough to have their futures trembling on a string, another doom inevitable on the horizon.

Bad enough to know that Jon is afraid and perfect and at risk unless they do something drastic.

But Jon's gone. He performs satisfaction to Sasha and the vampire, but inside he's horrified at the open window and nearby fire escape. How long has Jon been out there? What did Martin do, to have Jon that scared? It's cold out there.

"We'll be right back," Sasha says as she pulls her blood-stained shoes back on. "He'll be fine."

He doesn't say anything, but she glances in his direction and must see some of his misgivings and worry.

"He'll be fine," she says again. "Martin can feel where he is, in a general sort of way. We'll be back soon."

"I'm coming with you." Obviously he is, who knows what the vampire will do to Jon if he finds him first! If something happens to Jon, even if Tim can't stop it, he's going to know about it. He has to be there, so he'll know even when Jon's Ordered not to talk about it.

"You're all exhausted," Sasha says.

"I'm not." He swings his arms and pumps up and down on his toes. "I'm fine."

"You're vampire-bait, in the middle of what we're pretty sure is the densest vampire population in the country, without whatever implicit claim from Nikola might've been protecting you before," Sasha lists out. He glares. She huffs. "Anyone who sees you will know something happened. You'd still be in Yarmouth if it hadn't. You should stay here, in case Jon comes back."

"Danny can stay." Danny gives him a Look, but stays quiet. He's exhausted, and can only hide it so well this late.

"Jon doesn't know him," Sasha says.

"Jon doesn't trust either of you," Tim says. "I'm going."

He doesn't hear the footsteps behind him, absorbed in the argument with Sasha. Stupid. He just hears Danny make a strangled half-word moan, and as he turns his head to look at him he feels the teeth.

He'd collapse if Martin didn't snake an arm under one of his, holding him up. His vision starts to spot almost immediately, body hitting a point of instant panic and held in place regardless. The feeling of blood being drawn out of him is tearing, draining, sapping far more than any blood drive he's participated in. Danny never described this, and Tim understands why. The vampire rumbles like an idling engine.

There's a repulsive lap of Martin's tongue, mopping up the bit of blood on the skin when he stops drinking. He drags Tim to the couch and sets him down, eyes shifty and face flushed with stolen vigor. He could've been drinking for an hour or a minute, Tim isn't sure.

"Just- don't leave the flat until we get back," he mutters before running to the door. Sasha stares, eyes wide and mouth agape, but as Martin passes she stares at the ground and follows him out.

-

He doesn't know what to do. He can hear loud voices, snatches of plans to go out and look for him. Why didn't Martin just say where he was?

The door slams, and Jon breathes in the silence of the flat. He slowly worms out of his hiding place, trying not to make a noise, as if the departed group could hear him even now. When he's out, he replaces everything, disguising the gap once more. He crawls to the window and closes it as quietly as he can. Standing up makes his joints click, and he freezes at the sound, but the flat stays quiet and empty.

He tries to go to the kitchen. He's desperately thirsty, and as soon as his stomach is done twisting into knots he thinks he'll be hungry too.

His body comes to a stop at the threshold like the door's still closed and he's tried to walk through regardless. His lungs go tight.

"Go to your room and just, just stay put." That's what Martin said, hours and hours ago. He didn't put any natural limit on the Order, not "until I come get you" or "for the rest of the night," not anything!

His phone is still on the couch, where he left it when Martin dismissed him.

He stumbles back woodenly, vibrations thudding through his bones but silent to his own ears, smothered by ringing shock and horror. How long is Martin going to draw things out? He must be furious, knowing first that Jon conspired against him and then that he tried to shirk his purpose like a child feeding broccoli to the dog. How long before he comes and lets Jon out?

He will let him out, won't he?

-

Danny's pressed beside him on the couch, murmuring concern and suppressed panic. Tim doesn't hear it. It feels like he's underwater. He isn't part of the world anymore, not the way he was. He's... meat.

Danny stands, leaving a void where his comforting warmth sat beside Tim. Him shouting breaks through his haze enough to register, but his brain refuses to parse the words.

Danny skids back, trying to speak to him. He doesn't make sense of any of it.

Danny slaps him, and it feels like the world's been unmuted. "-knows you," he says.

"Huh?" he mutters, staggering to his feet. He was the one unhindered by blood loss or hours of exertion, and he blew it. It was Tim's job to protect Danny, to protect all of them, and he was too stupid and complacent to manage it. He stumbles in the direction of Jon's room, because it seems the thing to do, and Danny doesn't bother to correct him so it must be fine. He brushes past with more speed than Tim can muster at the moment.

Tim can't make sense of what he's seeing at first. It's the sort of thing he'd been half-imagining, the entire time they were planning the rescue, but even then he didn't quite believe it. There was no way to know that letting Danny and Jon meet would be feasible without a vampire hovering over things, seemed like the kind of thing Jon wouldn't be allowed unless they killed Martin, too, and that plan kept being written and rewritten in the notebook he has at home detailing every contingency he could think of for Jon and Danny.

He'll have to burn it, or maybe he'll be able to give it to Danny. If Martin is going to be in his flat, Tim doesn't want it anywhere he might find it.

"Jon?" he says, a dull thud of a syllable against his still-reeling brain. Jon's eyes dart up, then almost immediately find the place where there must be a mark on his neck from Martin. His face twists and falls; he looks gutted, and Tim feels terribly, terribly guilty. Jon was counting on him, too, and he failed.

"I'm sorry," Jon says, high and tight. "I'm sorry, Tim, I'm so sorry!" Danny huffs and rocks beside him, holding one of Jon's hands.

"Are you alright?" Standing is starting to make him feel woozy, and he isn't sure if it's fear or blood loss, so he makes it the rest of the way to the bed and sits on Jon's other side.

"He's stuck," Danny says, because this is Tim's idea and his plan and being an idiot doesn't make him less responsible. He knows Jon, knows Sasha, knows Martin through both of their descriptions. It's his job to take care of them all, and he has to do it as well as he's able now that he's ruined everything. "Martin told him to stay here without any way to end it."

He furrows his brows. "Then how...?"

Jon's hand flies out of Danny's grasp so he can cover his face with both. "I'm sorry, I'm sorry. It was stupid, I thought he would know, I don't know why he pretended not to."

"Where were you?"

Jon slides sideways into Danny, who's handling everything far better than Tim is. "Under the bed. I just- Elias just pulled me out, or Ordered me. I thought Martin would do the same, and it feels... felt safe. Better than waiting out in the open, it was harder to hear everyone yelling there and I couldn't hear well enough to make anything out in the first place, it felt better. I'm sorry, Tim."

"Stop apologizing." It's harsher, more blunt, than it should be, but it takes his brain a moment to catch up to why Jon's so upset before he can articulate why he's wrong. He aims for a gentler tone as he adds, "It isn't your fault. None of it was your fault. It was Martin's for being awful and mine for being careless."

Jon shakes his head, hands falling to his lap. "Not like you invited a vampire into your house."

Before Tim can unravel how wrong that is, Danny jostles his shoulder against Jon and says, "I'm a bigger idiot than either of you, so cut it out. Not like you paid for the privilege."

"What, really?" he asks, temporarily diverted. Danny never said what happened. He just told Tim that he was quitting his job to join the circus, and it only came out when Tim came down to check on him, assuming he had either had a mental breakdown or would appreciate having support in the audience. Mrs. Dean was the one to tell him as much as she could, whispering beside each other in the family seats.

Danny snorts and shakes his head self-deprecatingly. "I was on my way home from a trip, but I got a late start and then got sidetracked along the way. Ended up in Yarmouth feeling way too tired to make it the rest of the way and decided to find someplace to stay the night. Got lost looking for somewhere and saw the adverts; figured it'd be a bit of fun, and someone there could probably give me directions, after."

His eyes go distant and he clears his throat. Jon looks entranced, a horrible loneliness about his face; Sasha couldn't dismiss it, Tim couldn't draw it out into words to communicate the cause, but it must be this: someone just as afraid and unsuspecting as he must have been, the first time they were bitten.

"There was an accident," Danny says. "It was... off. All the vampires in the stands just stood up and left, following the stretcher, dozens of them, and everyone left seemed completely unfazed. I waited the show out and planned on going someplace else for directions. Felt like I'd be glad to sleep in a field somewhere, as long as it got me away. Nikola came up behind me and dragged me out of sight. Bit me right there behind the ring toss."

Jon leans into Danny's side, a more solemn rendition of the shoulder-jostle. "I'm sorry."

Danny smiles, sideways and bitter. "Nothing to be sorry for. You're the reason I got out, by extension. Tim already tried everything we thought had a chance."

Jon looks at him, and Tim remembers that his past attempts never really came up with Jon, just Sasha, in private. He was afraid that hearing his lack of confidence would hurt or frighten Jon unnecessarily.

"You heard 'vampire' and didn't come up with 'stake'?" he asks, almost teasing but falling a bit short of that kind of levity.

"I didn't hear- I heard 'mind control' and took another direction," Tim protests. Ordering Danny into performing, shutting up, letting her in barely a quarter of an hour after Tim got to Danny's flat even though Tim could see how scared he was, all had seemed far more relevant at the time.

"Still," Jon insists.

"You didn't either!"

It's the wrong thing to say. Jon's face shutters, and he slumps. Tim grasps for anything that might get back the tiny smile and momentary relief from the dread of Martin's inevitable return. "I'm sorry," he says, and it rings hollow.

"Are you alright?" Danny asks Jon, managing to salvage the feeling of care if not the smile. "You look..."

Wrung out. Jon's face is blotchy and tear-stained, his eyes bloodshot, his nails ragged. All in fear of what Martin would do to him for helping them.

It's a sign of how bad things are that Jon doesn't deflect. His head hangs and he says, "I have a headache. Should've stashed some water and snacks in here, just in case.

It isn't something he should have to plan contingencies for, but Tim doesn't say so. He's sure Jon already knows, and saying it would just be rubbing salt in the wound. Danny jumps up before he can offer, leaving the pair of condemned men to contemplate the gallows together. 

Tim touches where he knows Martin bit him, worrying about how obvious it is to Jon, and his fingers struggle to find the wound. Bloodbags heal small injuries like that faster, he remembers Sasha telling him.

Guilty as charged.

-

Danny returns with a glass of water and a big bowl of pretzels, practically before he's left. It makes Jon feel like a terrible host, however at odds that is with the situation. He hops up again not long after, refilling his glass. The cool water feels too blessedly soothing to turn down.

When he's emerged from his libations, he finds the brothers leaning against each other, whispers that seem more noise than word passing between them, not trying to hide the content from Jon at all.

He shouldn't be privy to any of this. It's his fault that Martin was angry enough to bite Tim instead of restraining himself the way Sasha was so sure he would. They should be free to go on their merry way.

"You alright, Jon?" Danny asks, because he's so pathetic he can't help himself from making his everyday reality out to be a bigger crisis than the one he's directly caused Tim.

"Fine." His voice is rough, even now. He doesn't ask for more water; he'll just have to hope that he's sufficiently hydrated to make whatever penance Martin extracts bearable. And that Martin withdraws the Order keeping him in his room afterward.

"What are you doing?" Tim asks, and Jon jerks his head up in case his pity party is being called out.

"What does it look like, Timothy?" Danny says. He can hear it now that he's listening for things outside the drumbeat of misery in his head; the faint sound of Danny sawing at one of his wooden spoons with a paring knife. It's far quieter and more successful than he would have thought the state of his kitchen utensils could allow.

"What are you going to do with it?" Tim asks, a good deal frostier than necessary.

"What do you think?"

Jon's chest goes tight. Maybe they can move out of London or live their lives smelling unremarkable, but he knows exactly what will happen to him without Martin. How long can he keep up the ruse that Martin's still around, at work? How has he acted before? Can vampires just tell whether there's someone with a claim to a person? He can't move. He's already gone over his contract, and trying to leave before the end of his year will wind up wiping him out financially. Catastrophically so. And more importantly, it'll tip Elias off.

He can't ask Tim to live like this for his sake, but his throat feels like it's closing. All of his hateful, frightened thoughts about Martin crumble to dust. Martin is better than Elias, and whatever he feels about Martin, his palms are sweating at the mere thought of being under Elias's control again.

"Don't," Tim says, and Jon's head snaps toward him, afraid Tim's somehow seen what he's trying to hide. Being afraid doesn't excuse being selfish, and he can't let Tim act on either.

"Why?" Danny asks, continuing to saw at the spoon. Jon's worried he'll cut himself, and then discards the thought for being too absurd for the circumstances. If he dwells on things like that in combination with the terror seizing his heart, he's afraid he'll start laughing like a loon and be unable to stop.

-

"I saw Elias," Tim's mouth says without his brain's approval. "At the show."

"What?" Danny asks, whirling on him. "Why didn't you say? Have you seen him there before?"

He shakes his head, numb and wooden. "Just today."

"What's he look like?" he asks, temporarily diverted from his homemade stake.

Tim shrugs. His sluggish mind is struggling to pull together an image of the man.

"Tall," Jon says quietly. "White. Long nose, high cheekbones. Gray eyes, hair that looks brown or blonde or gray depending on the lighting."

Tim feels Danny stiffen beside him. "I think I have seen him there before. Nikola brought him over to concessions once! Introduced him like she likes- liked- to do sometimes. Stuck out because he had the same name as your boss, and because I always saw him when I looked at the family seating. He came all the time. Not tonight, though. He's usually behind the family seating, I didn't see him."

"Because he was sitting right across from us. Where I'd see him."

"Does he know you know?" Danny asks. It's too sensible a question for tonight; not after the fresh disaster Tim's led Danny right into. 

Jon would've been in trouble no matter what they did, and it's better to have an idea of how much danger they'll all be in going forward anyway. It's almost worth it, to be able to draw a bit of fire from Jon.

"He must," Jon murmurs. "You were there when he came. You saw... saw me. Leave. You've been hanging around me."

Tim nods. Jon doesn't see it, because Jon isn't looking at anyone. It's like he's afraid that seeing them will make them hurt him. Bad as Nikola was, Danny never looked like that. "It's the first time I've gone to the show since then."

"So if we kill Martin he'll just swoop in," Danny says, hands going lax. "Would he bite you?"

Tim slants a shrug. "If we smell so good, and he was pals with Nikola, I can see her declaring me off limits." He says it with more confidence than he feels. It's flippant in a way he never was with Danny, and he can tell Danny notices and doesn't intend to let Tim get away with it.

"Martin's better," Jon says before he can, practically a whisper.

-

Jon shivers in place, he's so tense. He hopes the others didn't hear him. It's true, but it seems tactless. It's important, to him at least, but it seems insensitive. It's subjective, and Tim has his own years of experience with Elias. Jon made the same point when they were planning, and Tim didn't seem receptive then. He might just decide that Jon was Ordered to say it,. Even trapped with him and Martin, he still won't really be Tim's friend.

His throat closes when he so much as thinks in the direction of Tim or the others killing Martin. Even if Elias isn't interested in the Stokers, he'll be interested in Jon.

Please, please, please, he just has to make it to the end of his contract. He's so close. Jon only needs a few months, that's all.

Not that it will matter. He'll be constantly looking over his shoulder, expecting to find out that Martin's dead from Elias first. It'll make him ineffective enough to ruin the reference anyway. And for all his assessments of his ability to work after being fed on now versus when he came to London, Martin wasn't an irrelevant factor. Not having to go to work the day after was life-changing, and so were feedings light enough to function afterward. Elias will be vindictive. He'll gloat, and torture, and maybe even take Jon so close to the edge he'll have to call in. He has Jon in his power every day; Elias is more than nasty enough to make sure Jon is never well enough to find another job. 

If Jon survives his first night back with Elias.

And he's selfish, but not entirely! He can't bear to think of Tim in Elias' clutches. Tim is so energetic, so good. Elias will take all of that away; a chance with Martin is better, surely? There's a chance, Tim has a chance.

"You said," Tim says, and Jon can't detect his feelings audibly. He nearly bursts into tears from the stress and anticipation.

"Can you explain how?" Danny asks.

Jon nearly doesn't manage to say anything at all without crying. When he does force the first words out, he finds himself recounting his last feeding with Elias without deciding to do so.

-

Jon chokes out a story far worse than any Tim's heard from him before, and he barely manages to keep his composure long enough to tell it. It ends in a tumbling, mixed-up gush of insistent opinions that are all half apology.

It rivals the worst of Danny's stories, and most of Danny's involve someone dying.

It leaves Jon rocking and crying, all the progress they made ruined again. Tim thinks his ears are playing tricks on him at first, catching words in wordless whimpers, until he listens harder and realizing that Jon keeps startling back into noises and then tumbling toward quiet pleas, over and over.

The door to the flat unlocks.

Tim moves before thinking, physically shoving Danny back. Jon falls apart, utterly. Tim just counts himself lucky that Danny knows him well enough to interpret his look, and that he set a good enough precedent when Danny was the one with the vampire that he'll feel obligated to follow Tim's lead in this. The one with nothing to lose gets to determine the level of risk he's comfortable with the other shouldering. Tim followed that, so Danny will too. He slams the bedroom door shut behind him and takes two numb-legged steps forward before he can't bring himself to move any further.

Martin steers Sasha into the flat, hands on her shoulders instead of just Ordering her on. Her face is flushed with cold, and Martin's faded pallor is even starker in comparison. He's close enough to pass indoors, but apparently his body doesn't bother bringing blood to his cheeks and nose. He glances up, a scrap of attention torn from Sasha and almost immediately returned to her. "Didn't Jon come back?"

Tim's always prided himself on being good at thinking on his feet. Not just with Nikola, but long before vampires stopped being fictional for him. Tim goes with the flow. He keeps conversation moving, he keeps it moving in certain directions if he has to hide a lie or a secret. He distracts people when he needs to, draws their attention when he needs that instead.

He's completely frozen. He might as well be made of stone.

Martin's too much of an unknown quantity. He isn't a stranger Tim's bumped into, he isn't someone Tim can charm carelessly and then never see again. He isn't even a danger Tim can steer, the way he used to steer Nikola. He's dangerous, but they don't know how much; he's a liar, but they don't know how much; he's angry, or soon will be, but they don't know how much.

And he isn't angry at Tim. If Tim guesses wrong, if he tries to draw Martin's ire too blatantly or too subtly, he'll go looking for Danny and Jon. He can't even hide what's happened, because if Martin leaves Jon will be trapped in his bedroom until he comes back.

"Tim?" Sasha asks. She looks utterly heartbroken; it's a brilliant act, if she was the double agent he and Jon suspected. It might be worse, if she was actually as unsuspecting or thoroughly controlled as she seemed. Her attention flickers to Martin and she says, "If they didn't let him in, we would've seen him. He didn't have his keys, they're in the kitchen."

Martin's forehead furrows, and Tim knows why before he says a word.

-

Danny is holding Jon's hands and saying something, but he can't hear him. He feels like bursting into tears, but he can't. It's like every awful waiting evening spent trapped in his room while Elias made himself comfortable. The monster is coming, and Jon can't do anything about it.

The only thing he tried to do about it made things infinitely worse.

Danny went to the door when Tim fled, moving around and maybe speaking. He did something in his periphery, and Jon can't turn his head. He can barely move enough to breathe. Martin is going to be so angry. There are two extra people in the flat for him to take his anger out on. Calamity hangs over Jon's head, and when it falls it'll crush him.

"He won't come in here," Danny's saying when Jon's ears decide to reconnect to his brain, even though he can't possibly promise that. Tim was shocked by some of the things Sasha had to say; Jon's the only one in the bedroom with experience with vampires who are willing to make use of talents like becoming clouds of mist. He shakes his head woodenly.

"You're the only one in here he can Order to do anything," Danny says, joining him on the bed once more. "And I'm stronger than you."

Jon shakes his head again. "Tim- It's my fault."

"It's his fault," Danny says evenly. "Never yours." They said, but this time it hits Jon in the chest, piercing right through his heart. 

He came to London like a lamb to slaughter; that was a favorite of Elias', usually followed by how grateful Jon ought to be that it was Elias who found him, not someone even worse. Inviting a stranger in, just like that-- why didn't Jon call the insurance company or his landlord, to confirm that someone was actually supposed to be doing an assessment? Any normal person would have, instead of letting him in. It just showed he was meant for this- a conclusion Elias relished handing down, and which made an awful amount of sense when he started talking to Sasha. Her account of Martin's side of the story just seemed to reinforce that; Jon was just going about his business, but doing that as a perfect bloodbag and exactly Martin's type was asking for it. 

It's always been his fault; no one's ever said otherwise, not so directly. Not in a way he believed.

-

Knowing he didn't have a choice didn't make the horror of spilling out everything Jon told him any less intense. Sasha's uneasy glances between him and Martin feel even worse. And it's a humiliating way for Jon to have got one over on Martin. Nikola would've bitten Tim for being the bearer of that news, which is why he made sure Danny wound up on the other side of the door. He's too used to being the one who puts his body in the path of a vampire. He'd tell Martin everything without thinking about how the dynamics of being the shot messenger had changed tonight.

Martin doesn't look angry yet. More annoyed, which makes Tim's breath come short. If he isn't going to take his anger out on Tim, then it'll come down on Jon. Jon, who's terrified. Jon, who thinks this is all his fault. Martin seeming to agree will just make things worse for him. He seems far more likely to believe Martin than he is the rest of them.

"Jon?" Martin calls, brushing past Tim. He jostles the doorknob, but Danny acted fast and it doesn't open. "Jon, open the door!"

Tim can hear a struggle on the other side, but even exhausted Danny can overpower Jon without a second thought. Jon won't have to come out of the bedroom until Tim's figured out how to get them all out of this, how to defray Martin's anger while still getting him to let Jon out. If he can get that far, he can get them out of this. He's sure of it, he has to.

It takes a long, awful moment to figure out what he's seeing. Martin stretches and pales, and then he's gone and there's a sheet of mist over the floor, drifting lazily but with more purpose than it ought to be capable of showing under the door.

There are several alarmed cries on the other side of the door, followed by shifting furniture. The door opens on Martin's glowering face before Tim can get too worried. Martin storms back to the couch. Tim's still frozen to the spot while Danny and Jon take a moment to calm themselves.

"Well?" Martin says, and it's enough to crack something inside Tim.

"You Ordered him not to leave his room," he snarls with no thought to Martin's reaction. "Hours ago."

Sasha's eyes widen. She stands apart, nearly to the kitchen but not quite, part of no group.

"Jon, come here," Martin says, with the nerve to sound tired. Jon looks awful, staggering out of his room like he isn't sure whether to be grateful.

He stands in front of Martin, head bowed like a scolded child. "I'm sorry."

Martin's face smooths, but there's no relief in it for Tim. He did his best to keep Sasha from bringing it up where Jon could hear, but he assembled far too many fragments speaking with her. Tim wants to tear him apart, seeing him look at Jon like that.

"I'm sorry," Martin says softly. "Are you alright? Do you need something to eat?"

Jon shakes his head, eyes on the floor. Tim shifts to join them, and that sets the others on the same trajectory. He doesn't like having Danny that close to Martin, but he hates having Jon there all alone. Tim does his best to catch Jon's attention, but Jon startles at his hands on his shoulders anyway. When Jon lands on the couch there's no space for Martin. Sasha's approach is accommodated, reluctantly, by Danny moving to the floor, but Martin is left alone.

He takes the armchair, looking at all of them with irritation. It's disorienting, the sort of look Tim's used to seeing bleed into immediate, violent punishment on Nikola's face. And Tim is still undecided as to whether Martin is less mercurial, or simply a more patient sadist.

-

Jon's throat is swollen closed, and he can't shift his eyes from the floor. He's terrified that eye contact with Martin will be what finally spurs him into punishment. He doesn't know what the point of the concerned act is supposed to be, and he's sick at himself for feeling safer surrounded on the couch. None of these people should have to be the shield for Jon's well-deserved punishment.

Please, he thinks, don't let it be something physical. Take away my voice or my body for the night, or just drain me. Please don't choose something else.

Danny takes his hand, and he tries not to squeeze too hard. He could probably break a robot's fingers imparting all the things he'd like to spill out and shove down through his grip.

"What happened, Jon?" Martin asks. It's plain and even, and sounds concerned more than anything. His gut churns, and he can barely squeeze oxygen past the lump in his throat, never mind words.

"He was hiding," Danny says from his place on the floor, startling Jon into a hard flinch. "Because he's terrified of you."

Jon's desperately jealous of the strong tone and harsh words, and desperately afraid of what they might provoke. Tim being bitten because of his selfishness is bad enough.

"Jon..." Martin says. To his horror, a tear drops into his lap, surely visible to Martin.

"Martin," Sasha says, sharp and stressed. Jon should look up and see Martin's reaction, it's data he needs to predict how angry Martin might be for future transgressions, but his eyes are so full that moving threatens to send more tears visibly tumbling, and blinking away enough to actually look at Martin certainly will.

Jon just wants it all to be over. He doesn't know whether he means the evening or his life. Just over.

-

Martin tears his eyes from Jon like it hurts. Tim's jaw is clenched, and he can't stop. If he does, he isn't sure whether he'll cry or scream or vomit, but it'll be bad regardless.

"You bit Tim," Danny says. He lets it hang there, a condemnation everyone can read.

"There was no reason for him to come look for Jon," Martin snaps. Tim flinches, and hopes that the movement is small enough to go unnoticed.

"You bit him." Danny doesn't bother embroidering the statement any further; Tim supposes he doesn't need to. Either Martin gets it or he doesn't, but there's no reason to think that state will change in either direction because of them. Tim wants Danny to stop, but he's afraid of voicing that here.

"And so would the next vampire either of you stumbled across," Martin bites out- ha! "You're perfect, and he's close."

"Better Martin than Elias," Jon says, so faint that Tim can't read it as anything but a statement meant for his own ears and no one else's. Jon doesn't look like he's in any state to come up with manipulations like that. If there's any effect on Martin, it won't be one Jon intended. It sounds like he's trying to convince himself, or turn it into a mantra that will make itself true by repetition.

Martin, interestingly, looks stricken. His eyes struggle to leave Jon, even when he tries to return his attention to them.

Bastard.

Danny rolls his neck and then bounces up to his feet, a single motion from the circus he's somehow still awake enough to perform. Tim feels like he could sleep for a thousand years. "Alright. Do it then."

Martin looks surprised; he probably expected more of a fight. Tim feels sick. Jon's breath seizes in his chest, a beat away from hyperventilating. Danny turns enough to catch Tim's eye, and shakes his head, turning his back on Martin.

"Come on," Danny says to Jon, more to have something to say than to impart meaning. He manages to bustle Jon up from the couch and into Tim's arms, and Tim glares at him over Jon's head.

"Danny."

"My decision," Danny says, tight and angry. His eyes burn, and even knowing it's not directed at him Tim flinches from his gaze like he would a hot pan. 

As much as that's worth. Tim runs from the sight of Danny beneath fangs again, teeth clenched.

-

Jon eventually realizes he's on his bed, and the lights have been turned on. Tim is sprawled a bit at the foot, like he tripped pacing and stayed where he landed.

Why did they come? Why did he convince them to come? What did he think would happen? They don't even know if Martin's report of how they all smell is accurate, Sasha mentioned knowing that he ought to have more than the two of them, and look how neatly she and Jon have managed to double his stock!

It's Tim's brother out there, and he's here instead because Jon is too pathetic to function. After already failing to do the one thing he was responsible for tonight.

Tim's head jerks when Jon moves, and Jon realizes Tim has been watching him. He smiles, even after everything that's happened, like Jon is the one who needs comforting.

"Better?"

Jon shakes his head, even though he has no idea what point he's supposed to be comparing to. It's a general denial, denial of the whole awful nightmare. "I'm sorry." His voice is barely better than a wail.

"It's not your fault." Tim scrambles up the bed, and takes his hands. "I mean it. I mean it every time. It's not your fault. We chose to come here, and- and Danny chose." The comforting voice trips over Danny's name.

"I'm sorry," he repeats, uselessly.

Tim seems to realize it's as much grief as it is apology, and just leans into him. "We'll figure it out. We're not dead yet."

Jon can't hold back a laugh. It's ugly, barely a laugh at all, but Tim smiles.

They both cringe, smiles falling away, when someone taps a knuckle against the doorframe. The door isn't closed all the way, and Martin is able to push it open enough to stick his head in with barely a touch. "Jon?"

Jon turns toward him as best he can, though he doesn't manage to keep his eyes in the direction of Martin's face after the first glimpse reveals blood streaked at the corner of his mouth. He isn't sure whether deliberate theater or complete thoughtlessness provides a worse explanation.

"I'm heading out," he says like Jon bothered to say anything. "I- I'll text you when to expect me, alright?"

Jon nods, head heavy.

"Your brother's on the couch," Martin adds.

-

When the door closes behind Martin, Tim forces himself into action. He expects Jon to stay put, but he climbs to his feet and walks shakily after Tim, sticking close enough to feel the heat of him. It solidifies his next steps in his mind.

Danny doesn't look too bad; Martin must've gotten enough from Tim to be sparing, or maybe he just didn't want to push it with Nikola's teeth still marked on Danny's neck from her last supper. Sasha is collecting her things, head hanging.

"I'm sorry," she says as soon as he and Jon come in. "I'm so sorry." Her eyes are red, and she rushes out the door before anything can be said in response.

"Jon?" Tim prompts. "Danny's going to spend the night over at mine. Do you want to come?"

Jon looks up at him like Tim's said the very last thing he expected. "What?"

Tim smiles grimly. "Martin doesn't have a key to my place yet. If you want the company, you're more than welcome. But it's fine if you don't want to come."

"I- I'd like to," Jon stammers.

As the three of them trudge out to the car, the edges of the sky are beginning to lighten.